Unilever closes its final salary pension scheme

Unilever, the food and household goods giant, became the latest firm to announce plans to close its final salary pension scheme.

Tthe Anglo-Dutch business, which makes global brands Dove soap and Magnum ice cream, said it will begin a 90-day consultation with staff over the scheme, which has 7,000 members.

It has a £680million deficit and was closed to new members in 2008.

Withdrawn: Unilever says it plans to replace its final salary scheme with two defined benefit options by January 2012

Unilever becomes the latest in a long line of big firms in recent
years to withdraw its final-salary pension, which was once seen as
attractive perk of joining a large company.

Asda, Northern Rock, Aviva, Taylor Wimpey and Tate & Lyle
have all closed their final salary schemes, which are now seen as too
expensive to run, because staff live far longer than actuaries had
envisioned.

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Unilever says it plans to replace its final salary scheme with
two defined benefit options by January 2012. The firm's UK & Ireland
chairman Amanda Sourry said: 'The changes have been proposed to help
tackle the increasingly unaffordable and unsustainable costs associated
with Unilever's UK pension fund.'

In February Unilever reported a full-year pre-tax profit up 18 per
cent to E6.1billion in 2010, while its sales rose 11.1 per cent to
E44.3billion.

Roger Turner, chief executive of the lobby group the Occupational
Pensioners' Alliance, said: 'This is pretty bad news for someone at
Unilever's who is in their 40s and had expected a certain level of
pension, and now has very little time to do much about it.'

Turner added: 'Companies are pretty hell-bent on closing their final
salary schemes. time is running out on them.' The shares closed down 11p
at 1915p.